...the consistency of one's emphasis and
timing is an honest signal of a focused and smoothly functioning
mind.

When we looked at salary negotiations with the sociometer, we
found these same patterns. That is, the more consistent
people were in their pattern of emphasis, the better they did in
the salary negotiation. This was true for both the boss
and the new employee-showing variability weakens your negotiation
stance. We found the same to be true for business
executives pitching business plans. The more consistent they were
in emphasis and rhythm while giving their pitch, the more
convincing they were to others. That was not the only benefit;
people with greater consistency were also perceived as having
better ideas and a better presentation style.

That said, this is not the best approach for all scenarios.

If the spotlight is not on you and you need to be open to the
ideas of others, it can backfire. In those situations a softer,
more open attitude wins the day. Here, a less consistent, less
focused approach shows you are open to the ideas of others:

Consistent emphasis, however, is not always a good thing.
It indicates focus and determination, but that is the opposite of
what you want to signal when you are in the role of the listener
and helper. In these situations, you want to be open to the
concerns and ideas of others. In handling sales
inquiries from customers where the potential customers are
already interested enough to call an agent, for example, a soft
sell attitude of helpful listening is better than a hard sell
pitch. In fact, when we studied sales inquiries to a
major retail chain, we found that variability in emphasis
together with the amount of listening time predicted a successful
sales call with extremely high accuracy.

And so variability in emphasis and pace appears to be an
honest signal that you are open to the contributions of others,
perhaps because it is the opposite of the consistent emphasis
that signals that you have made up your mind.Even at a
fine level of interaction, variability seems to signal an
openness to input from other people. Indeed, when we looked at thousands of hours of
recorded conversations, we found that the simple signal of
variable emphasis, together with the length of time you had
already spoken, accurately predicted places where other people
would jump into the conversation.

In summary, consistency of emphasis and timing in
conversation is an indication of the amount of integration
between higher brain centers and our action sequence control
system. Consistency is therefore an honest signal of mental focus
and determination, while variability indicates competing mental
processes and is a signal that others may be able to influence
your thinking.